Contents

Minutes after Amanda Young leaves him in the underground bathroom at the end of Saw II, Detective Eric Matthews escapes by breaking his foot with a toilet lid and slipping it out of his ankle chain. Six months later, another Jigsaw victim is discovered by Lieutenant Rigg and Detectives Kerry and Hoffman. In his test, Troy was to rip chains from his body in order to flee from a bomb; however, the door to the room was sealed, making the trap inescapable and thus going against Jigsaw's methods. Kerry, who feels guilty over Matthews' disappearance, later awakens in a harness hooked into her ribs. A key to unlock the device is within a beaker of acid; though she retrieves it, the device still tears her ribcage apart in opposite directions, making her trap inescapable as well.

Jeff, a man who seeks vengeance for the death of his son, and Lynn Denlon, a depressed doctor, are also kidnapped under John Kramer's orders. Lynn is brought before John, now bedridden from cancer, by his apprentice Amanda. She is given a straightforward game: keep John alive for the duration of Jeff's game. Should John die, or should she try to escape, the collar around her neck will fire five shotgun shells at her head. Meanwhile, Jeff awakens in the middle of an abandoned meatpacking plant and is informed that he must go through several tests, which will lead him to "the man responsible for the loss of his child."

In his first test, Jeff enters a freezer and finds Danica Scott (Debra Lynne McCabe), the only other witness to a drunk-driving accident that killed his son Dylan. By refusing to testify in court, she became an object in Jeff's vengeance. Danica is stripped naked and chained between two poles spraying ice-cold water at random intervals. She eventually convinces Jeff to help her, though she freezes solid before he can retrieve the key from behind frozen metal bars. In his second test, he successfully frees Judge Halden from the bottom of a pit being filled with liquefied pig corpses, by incinerating his late son's toys to retrieve a key. Halden had only sentenced Dylan's killer to six months in prison, further fueling his vengeful side. The third test brings Jeff face-to-face with Timothy Young (Mpho Koaho), his son's killer, who is strapped to a machine that will twist his limbs and neck one by one until they break. Jeff retrieves a key attached to the trigger of a shotgun, but Halden is killed when the shotgun accidentally discharges, and Jeff is too late to save Timothy before his neck is fatally broken. With his tests nonetheless complete, Jeff moves on to the final area.

Meanwhile, Lynn and Amanda work together to keep John alive. During an improvised brain surgery intended to relieve tension on John's brain, he semi-consciously professes his love for another woman, who Amanda mistakes for Lynn. Distressed from witnessing this, Amanda leaves the sickroom to continue watching Jeff's progress. It is revealed that Amanda cuts herself in her stress, and she recollects speaking with John and kiddnapping Adam prior to the events of the first film. Soon after, Amanda also finds a letter addressed to her, its contents causing her more distress. Following the surgery, Lynn and John talk privately; Lynn reveals that her ordeal has given her a new appreciation for her family. Amanda returns with the news that Jeff's tests are complete, but she refuses to release Lynn, not believing she has learned anything. She doesn't believe anybody changes after being tested, and designed her tests to be inescapable accordingly, including Troy's and Kerry's. She also reveals that she and Eric Matthews fought after he escaped the bathroom, and that she managed to overpower him and leave him for dead. Additionally, she returned to the bathroom and gave Adam Stanheight a mercy killing, by suffocating him with plastic wrap.

Jeff arrives in the makeshift sickroom just as Amanda shoots Lynn in the back; he retaliates by shooting Amanda in the neck. A saddened John reveals to Amanda that Lynn's test was actually hers; she was being tested on her will to keep someone alive; she had not known that Jeff and Lynn were married. Amanda dies from her wound, and John gives Jeff one last test, where he can choose to either kill John or forgive him for all the pain he has caused him and his family. If Jeff forgives him, John will call an ambulance to save Lynn. Jeff takes a circular saw, tells John he forgives him, and slashes his throat. The door to the room seals as the dying John pulls out a tape recorder, which tells Jeff that he has failed the test by killing John, who was the only person to know the whereabouts of Corbett (Niamh Wilson), Jeff's daughter; Jeff would have to play another game to find her before she runs out of air. As the message ends, John goes into cardiac arrest and dies; the shotgun collar simultaneously destroys Lynn's head, leaving Jeff sealed in the room with the three corpses.

According to the director's audio track on the DVD release, almost all the transitions from one place to another (such as from Kerry's trap to Chris' place, and Jigsaw's lair to Jeff's crate) were not made using digital effects. The transitions were shot on the spot. For example, when the camera moves from Troy's crime scene to Kerry being in the bathtub, Dina Meyer had to run, take off all her clothes, and jump into the tub. If you look closely, you can still see the water moving from when she got in.

According to Leigh Whannell, Adam had many more scenes in the original film, one of which was the scene between Adam and Amanda, included on the Saw III DVD bonus features.

According to producer Daniel J. Heffner, the film was toned down seven times to obtain the "R" rating. According to director Darren Lynn Bousman, the MPAA ratings board was less concerned with the film's graphic violence because television shows like CSI have expanded the scope of what is acceptable viewing with their graphic depictions of crime scenes and autopsies. Bousman says the MPAA is more concerned with emotional torture that disturbs the audience.[2]

A scene from Saw III was planned to be shown when the action/thriller film Crank opened in theaters on September 1. However, the MPAAdid not allow it, due to the scene's large amount of graphic violence. For similar reasons, an early teaser trailer for the film was removed from the official Saw III site. The next trailer released featured flashbacks of Jigsaw attaching the "reverse bear trap" to Amanda and applying his makeup for posing as the corpse in the bathroom from Saw. The ads played up Saw's yearly release dates with the tagline, "If it's Halloween, it must be 'Saw'"

About 1,000 special posters were made and sold for $20 each in support of Saw III. The posters were made with a small amount of Tobin Bell's blood (mixed with the printing ink). One such poster was also signed by the entire cast and crew of the film, and was auctioned off. All the proceeds from the auctioned poster were donated to the Red Cross.

At Spike TV's Scream Awards on October 10, 2006, Tobin Bell and Shawnee Smith appeared on stage with director Darren Lynn Bousman. Smith pinned Bousman to a chair, saying "Payback's a bitch," while Bell staged sawing off the top of Bousman's head. Smith then found a blood-saturated piece of film on his brain. This led to a "World Premiere" trailer featuring the plight of Troy in the body chains trap.

In a promotional video featured on MySpace (with similar versions made for YouTube and Break.com), Billy, Jigsaw's puppet, addresses the viewer in the same fashion as in the videos in the film. He states, "Hello. Are you watching me on MySpace? Good. I'd like to play a game with you. Up until now you've...just sat there as a voyeur, watching other people in their videos without care about who that person is. Well, what do voyeurs see when they look into the mirror? Let's find out. Right now you are being watched. If you forget for one second that you're being watched, you will lose. Your only way out is to understand these numbers: 1, 0, 2, 7, 0, 6. Find the meaning and you will live. Just remember; knowledge changes everything."[3] The numbers represent the film's release date, October 27, 2006.

The original cut of the film ran for slightly over two hours, and several scenes have been confirmed to have been cut out, including a scene which depicted an extended scene of Kerry and Rigg examining Troy's trap, where Kerry reveals to Rigg she has had nightmares about Eric, and she blames herself for what happened to him.

There was also reference in an interview with Bousman of a scene that was not shown, Jigsaw questioning if he was correct in his goal.[4] The audio commentary also notes that Leigh Whannell's character of Adam had more screen time, including a scene in which he passes by Amanda at the entrance of his apartment that was also included on the DVD.[5[1]]

The film received mixed to generally negative reviews. Rotten Tomatoes.com gave the film a 26% rating, qualifying it as "Rotten", whereasMetacritic gives Saw III a 48 rating, indicating mixed or average reviews, but still earning the series' best score up to date.

At screenings in the United Kingdom, five people were reported to have fainted at separate cinemas with three at one cinema, resulting in ambulances needing to be called.[6]

Playing in 3,167 theaters Saw III grossed a total of $33,610,391 on its opening weekend.[7] With a production budget of $9.98 million,[7] the film was already considered a box office success. Saw III ended up grossing $80,238,724 domestically and $150,907,724 worldwide. As of May 2008, the film has made $164,874,275, making Saw III the most successful film in the series worldwide thus far.[7]

Also confirmed are two exclusive featurettes to the Blu-ray Disc release of Saw III, which includes a feature on the writing of Saw III, and an "Amanda: Evolution of a Killer" featurette. These featurettes were also included on an exclusive 2-disc edition, sold at Target stores in the USand Future Shop stores in Canada. They contain the Unrated Widescreen Edition on Disc 1.

The unrated DVD, released on January 23, 2007, features a 113-minute cut of the film that includes more gore. On the commentary track, Bousman notes that this is not his original, two-hour-plus cut of the film, and that is why he released the Director's Cut in October 2007.

The unrated version of Saw III differs from the theatrical in many ways. The first noticeable difference is that the opening scene is more violent. The shots of Eric's heel being broken are much closer, and more detail is shown. When Kerry is discussing Eric with Rigg, the scene is slightly extended, showing her commenting on how she can't sleep because of his disappearance. When Kerry's trap triggers, a frontal shot is shown of her ribs being torn from her torso, leaving her organs exposed. Flashes showcase her innards dropping to the floor. The next noticeable difference is during Danica's Freezer Trap. A few extra shots show Jeff slamming the door, trying to get out. During the Rack, Tim's limbs are shown much more, showcasing his skin tearing as the bone shatters out of his skin. The flashback fight scene between Amanda and Eric is also extended. Amanda is shown hearing Eric's cries for his son, and seems distressed. While maneuvering in the corridor, Eric sneaks up on her and the fight resumes from there. The last and most major difference is the film's ending. In the theatrical, once the montage of the victims passes by, Lynn's corpse is shown quickly, before cutting to Jeff screaming, then on Jigsaw's corpse, and finally cutting to black. In the unrated, during the montage the music slightly overlaps, skipping a couple of seconds forward, and then showing Lynn's mutilated head, zooming in on the gory details, and then slowly fading out to white.[8]

The original theatrical version was also missing a soundtrack that was meant to play during the scene with Timothy Young in the Rack.

This version of Saw III is the definitive one that Darren Lynn Bousman had originally intended (prior to being forced to edit the film by the MPAA for the theatrical release), with a total running time of 121 minutes. A deleted scene reincorporated into this version of the film depicts a brutal fight between Amanda and Lynn. In another added scene, Amanda appears to be having nightmares about kidnapping Adam before she finally decides to give him a mercy killing. This scene also reveals Jigsaw knew Amanda killed Adam. Also included is the original ending, which shows Jeff stumbling over to Lynn's corpse, playing Jigsaw's tape, then screaming before the credits begin.[9]

Saw III made $47,099,279 [1] in DVD Sales, Being the largest DVD Sales for the Saw film series.